


An Oath is an Oath

by FlysWhumpCenter (TheDarkFlygon)



Series: Theatro Mundi (BTHB 2) [14]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (but not really), Blood and Violence, Character Death, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Relationships, Moral Dilemmas, POV Third Person, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 00:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20518853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/FlysWhumpCenter
Summary: ...so you should know better than swear two that contradict each other, especially during a war.





	An Oath is an Oath

**Author's Note:**

> Arma mulieremque cano.
> 
> Written for my (second) Bad Things Happen Bingo card.  
https://morbusaegraquescribo.tumblr.com/post/186951923331/here-is-your-new-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo  
Prompt: Breaking a Promise + Sylvain/Ingrid
> 
> I've been in a mood for heavy angst, so keep that in mind. Reader discretion is advised here.  
This was inspired by a two-page doujin my good friend Azure linked in our Discord server. I got intoigued, then got in a mood to make people suffer, and boom! this was born. hell yeah.  
Also my deathfics are shorter than my usual stuff, so I guess my heavy angst is to be consumed in a concentrated form?  
It felt weird to write and feels weird to backread, so I'm posting it now for the sake of gaining experience and showing a more daring side of my writing.

_I’ll never lose someone again_, Ingrid had promised herself when she had gotten over most of her grief. _I won’t let anyone kill someone dear to me ever again. I’ll stop them before they can._

Back then, she hadn’t had the powers to stop Glenn from meeting his undeserved demise. Years later, she had that power she had once lacked, hands strong enough to act on her will. She wouldn’t let herself taste powerlessness again she thought and swore, not now that she had become the warrior she wanted herself to turn into as she’d grow up.

But war is war. It tears people apart with no mercy, disregarding affections and feelings, until soldiers fighting for their life and their nation’s honour had their minds numbed and hearts changed into stone, having become soulless killing machines. No matter how many fairy tales of brave knights saving whom and what they loved she read and inserted herself into, it couldn’t change war into anything prettier than men and women killing each other for a greater cause.

And, no matter how much she tried to be the ideal warrior she had imagined Glenn to have been when he was still alive, Ingrid couldn’t deny the horrors of it as, firmly armed with her lance, she faced a very familiar face, wearing different colours and branding a different animal, the dreadful realization making itself known too quickly for her brain to even attempt ignoring.

_She’d have to break her promise with her own two hands. _

A bittersweet _long time no see, huh_ graced her as she arrived to face the next unit in the war. She almost went mute as she realized she’d be fighting one of the people closest to her right at this instant; but she shook her head and made his smirk disappear.

“This is war,” she replied, “and you know what this means, don’t you?”

“Oh, I sure do.” His expression put on a coat of seriousness unlike anything she had quite seen from him. “I’m afraid this will be the last time we see each other.”

The pressure on his axe strengthened.

“I wish it wouldn’t have ended this way, Ingrid. We were friends.”

“I could say the same of you, Sylvain. I’m disappointed by the choices you’ve made in this conflict, yet wish we’d have fought for the same cause.”

“When haven’t I disappointed you anyway, huh?” He scoffed. “That was yesterday, though, and today is something else. We’re not friends anymore, are we? To say that I’ve missed you…”

His chit-chat was annoying to hear, nagging at her loyalty and sense of morale. He had always tried to escape inconvenient situations with not-so-beautiful words and purple prose she had only seen through.

“We’re merely soldiers fighting on different sides, now. Shall we begin? I don’t want to lose more time speaking to the _enemy_.”

The harsh tone in her voice sounded fake to her but seemed to have sounded convincing to him, as she could theorize from the way he rose his axe at her. She could read conflict on his face too, the dilemma neither of them wanted to face, yet had to in order to make their side win. That was war, after all, and they were only the tiniest part of it.

Ingrid’s heart wanted to fight against her lance and the way her wrist moved itself in swift moves to brandish her weapon of choice against the face of a man that, five years ago, she’d have protected from himself; but her mind was stronger, it had always been, and her mind was loyal to King Dimitri and the Blue Lions. Not her fault if Sylvain thought the grass was greener elsewhere.

Not her fault, not her fault if he was dumb, not her fault if he wasn’t loyal, not her fault if he was running after Goddess-knew-what, not her fault if he was going to die by her hands.

That was war and she couldn’t do anything about it, that was how things were and had always been; yet her eyes still squeezed shut as she made her mount delve down in his direction, white feathers blowing in the wind, her lance’s tip heading down, metal shining against the light of the sun, fingers trembling, hands clammy, eyes wet and will wavering with the wind blowing through her hair.

_Forgive me, Goddess._

Her lance plunged with her horse.

_Forgive me, Glenn._

A noise of flesh rupturing, of metal meeting metal, of hooves crushing the dirt and the leaves.

_Forgive me, Sylvain._

She had to feel something warm splatter over her face and gliding down her armour to open them again, to dare face her deeds, face the feelings she hadn’t wanted to cultivate and scythe away without harvesting any fruit like you’d pick up rotting apples on the ground of the perishing acre.

_I beg of you, please forgive me._

Her lance had slipped through a hole in his own armour, drippling in red as she got it out of his body, blood painting the grass behind them. He fell from his wyvern, who escaped the field as its knight had disappeared from its back, black wings vanishing away from her sight and under the sun.

Even as her fellow warriors pursued the fight, their cries echoing in the distance, she instructed her mount to land, getting down of it in a rush and kneeling next to whom had been more than just a foe to vanquish in a war that had almost numbed her sense of empathy, steel boots clinking against the ground, red and green printing onto it and dirtying its shine.

Without thinking more than a moment about it, Ingrid picked Sylvain in her arms, a quick glance examining the wound: right in the lung, most likely in-between the ribs, a fatal wound if left untreated properly. But she was no healer, no ally of him, merely a former friend who had had to kill her enemy in battle if she wanted to win and keep her life. It was expected of her not to do anything about it, to just let the course of things be, so why was she so reluctant to watch this, to do this?

There was nothing she could about it, so why was she on the verge of crying, of weeping like the young girl who had never had to kill someone with her two hands? Was her heart still this tender, this naïve? What had made her so sensitive, so emotional over doing what she had done countless times by now, in the span of five years? Was it the memories of their playing time, the bond they had previously shared, the promise she had made under the stars on one calm but sorrowful night?

“Should’ve seen it comin’…” He coughed out, blood dripping down from his mouth, lungs congesting. “You’ve always been better at fighting than me…”

“I trained while you were busy skirt-chasing,” she replied, calmly, trying to keep it together. It’d be a disgrace to her king and comrades if she started bawling in the middle of the battlefield for the fallen enemy.

“Still… I’m almost glad it’s you who killed me… At least, you were a worthy opponent…”

“I could say the same about you, I suppose.”

He tried to laugh, but all that came from it was red almost splashing on her.

“I’ll finally stop causing you problems,” he finally said, eyes closing on themselves. “That’s a good thing, no…?”

Ingrid didn’t reply, her mind unable to come out with anything satisfactory. Teasing the enemy seemed fine, until she remembered that, in death, allies and enemies barely made sense. Her sense of allegiance had left the premise for a moment, the notion of picking a side suddenly stopping to beat with her heart.

He seemed to notice her lack of reply with this smirk giving stead to a serious expression.

“Y’know, Ingrid… Even like that… I don’t hate you...”

There was no right answer to give him, obviously, as words were already an act of treason to her cause. Honour before feelings and all that. Proverbs stopped making sense, but she was still following their principles anyway.

“In the end, I realize that… neither do I.”

“Good… ’d’ve been a shame if you did…” His lips reached an all-time low. “It’s all messed up anyway… World’s mess’d up…”

His eyes shut never to open again, his warmth already slipping between his armour’s holes, pouring from his wound, joining the sky above.

“See ya on the other side, Ing… ’t was nice knowing you, even if it ended like that…”

“Farewell, Sylvain.”

_I’m sorry; so, so sorry. I couldn’t keep my word._

In this battle of a name that escaped from her memory, sorrowful Ingrid had broken the promise she had made to herself as she cradled next to her sob-rattled chest the still-warm, smirking, lifeless body of her dearest friend, knowing the battle would rage on with or without her, with or without him. As she resolved herself to either let what was left behind there or bury the remains, one question came to her mind, burning her tongue, scorching her throat, singing her chest from the inside:

_When had she become a gravedigger? _

**Author's Note:**

> shhh I know I've gone against the weapon triangle please ignore it, artistic license: fire emblem weapons plz  
I also broke the promises I made to myself for this stupid bingo so this is fitting


End file.
